


Solidarity

by Natasja



Series: Tumblr and NaNoWriMo prompts [6]
Category: Two Sides of the Same Coin - Natasja Rose
Genre: F/F, Menstruation, Multi, Political commentary as fic, Superheroes, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:34:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24624808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natasja/pseuds/Natasja
Summary: Being a Superhero does not exempt you from the pitfalls of human biology.No-one is happy about that, but the Heroines and Villainesses have an accord, and that is enough to make most people shut up about it.
Relationships: Jason | Phoenix/Melissa | Winter Queen/Riona | Shadow Queen
Series: Tumblr and NaNoWriMo prompts [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1192681
Kudos: 5





	Solidarity

**Author's Note:**

> Technically, this is a fanfic of my own original work, but with all of the people I usually bother to be my sensitivity readers having bigger concerns during the current crisis, I'm posting it here in the hopes of getting feedback before deciding whether or not to include it in the next collection of Superhero Short Stories after I finish the trilogy.

Being a Superhero did not, unfortunately, protect a person from basic biology. Quite the opposite, in fact, since the very few studies done all suggested that having powers also made female superheroes more inclined toward profound suffering, a few days out of every month. It was the biggest complaint among Shape-shifters, who felt that if they could change their form, they should at least be able to skip the downsides of their original form, too.

Their audience, comprised of Supers who underwent the same problems without the benefit of being able to change their bodies, was largely unsympathetic.

Active Super-heroines quickly developed a system: take a sick day during the worst of it, and a secret code that would alert those closest and bring anyone not currently engaged in Heroic Deeds running with sanitary items, comfort food of choice, and a quick bout of whatever needed to be done while the Heroine in question was incapacitated.

Heroes trod carefully around their female team-mates during that period (often to a frankly absurd degree), and Villains even moreso. Super-Heroines found the stereotype annoying and vaguely insulting, but since it cut down on the casual ‘time of the month’ based jokes, they accepted it as the lesser of two evils. Perhaps that was why Villains were so cautious; Villainesses were a lot less tolerant of casual misogyny and had far fewer ethical standards to stop them from doing something about it.

Of course, even the best solution wasn’t perfect, and sometimes, you just had to grit your teeth and move a bit more carefully in a fight.

* * *

The Defenders were a Superhero team of five, only one of whom was male. Phoenix had a few problems with those dynamics; namely that for some reason, his fellow heroes still ignored his advice to stop treating heroines like active bombs ready to go off at any moment, and the constant jibes that assumed he was sleeping with all of them. (In point of fact, Phoenix was only dating two of his team-mates, but the fine details of their polyamorous triad was none of anyone else’s business.)

Besides, it was familiar. Both of his parents, also Super-heroes, had been taken out of his life early, and the two families that co-raised him afterward were predominantly female. As a result, Phoenix had been driven to panic over menstruation exactly once; when the twins he was raised alongside hit puberty early, about a week before their parents had planned to give them that particular talk, and had been firmly convinced that they were dying. Their mother included him in the subsequent discussion about the facts of life, which had stripped away all the myths, and Phoenix had decided that in the interests of NEVER sitting through such a frank discussion again, he would treat the issue with the calm consideration that Heroines did.

Tsunami grumbled when the Hero Alert went off, ducking into another room to change. They had all undergone training to be able to change from civilian dress to superhero costume in a few seconds, but that became a lot harder when any sudden moves triggered minor flooding. She emerged to find her team-mates waiting. Winter Queen sounded as cool and calm as the ice she controlled, despite the concern on her lovely face. “Hostage situation, let’s move.”

* * *

Fortunately, the hostage situation involved only a few minor villains, new to the profession and not very good at it. They hadn’t even bothered to rough anyone up or issue threats, just trapped some civilians inside a forcefield and issued demands for a ridiculous sum of money. Foiling their plans didn’t take much more than disabling their weapons and tying them up, then leaving some of Shadow Queen’s scarier-looking constructs as a guard while they went looking for whatever controlled the forcefield.

Really, when a town’s main protectors included a pyro, an ice-user and someone who manipulated water, you’d think the crime element would stop using weapons made out of wood or metal. None of them had even thought to make a lunge for the fire extinguisher.

Halfway through their search of the building, Tsunami stopped in her tracks, looking pained. Her team-mates all recognised the signs, and Naiad waved her away. “We’ll keep going. You find a bathroom and catch up when you can.”

Tsunami broke protocol long enough to kiss her girlfriend on the cheek in gratitude, and headed back to the last bathroom sign she had seen, thanking the fates that her uniform was not one that showed stains easily. Heroines who considered white a good base colour quickly learned otherwise.

* * *

Like most things involving genitals, changing a tampon involved careful positioning, exclamations of varying volume and intensity ranging from frustration to ecstasy, and no small degree of mess.

Tsunami’s uniform was resistant to bloodstains - a practicality that cut down on dry-cleaning expenses - and liquid, but when it came to overflow, that only meant an ungodly mess anywhere the uniform covered, and desperate prayers to various deities that it didn’t extend to places her costume didn’t cover.

Luckily, another practicality was that it wasn’t necessary to take off the entire uniform just to use the amenities, another thing that far too many costumed Supers never considered, and Tsunami was nearly finished when the door opened and heavy footsteps - heavier than any of her team-mates - entered.

On the bright side, it turned out to be Bloodhound, something of a ‘dude-bro’ and a former Sidekick who had gone rogue when he found out that he was expected to work under a _girl._ No-one was sure how that was meant to improve his lot, since the Villain community was fairly evenly split, gender-wise, and what a Villain identified as had nothing to do with how dangerous they were.

Either way, Bloodhound wasn’t a serious threat, and became even less of one when Tsunami didn’t wait for him to attack, but slapped him across the face with her bloody hand and slipped the used and only partially-wrapped pad into his clenched fist. He went from posturing to panicking in barely a second, and Tsunami dodged around his flailing arms as he shrieked. “Ew! Get it off, get it off!”

A well-placed kick sent him staggering into the cubicle, his howls intensifying when he realised Tsunami hadn’t finished wiping a few minor splatters off the seat, and another blow to the lock damaged the mechanism, trapping him inside. “Later, Bloodhound.”

The wailing stopped for a moment as the door rattled. “You can’t leave me in here with… with this! There are _clots_ in it! It’s un-natural and inhumane!”

Tsunami rolled her eyes. “Actually, it’s a very natural human process. Relax, it’s only unfertilised eggs and uterine lining.”

Fine, so she was rubbing it in, but on behalf of every girl who had been forced to endure his mocking at the Superhero Academy, he probably deserved it. Calmly, she scrubbed her hands and ran to catch up with her team, ignoring the renewed shrieks, now interspaced with some very creative profanity.

* * *

They were coming to the last few rooms when they came across a final villainess, vaguely recognisable as Glimmer, who could glow in intermittent bursts, and decided to take her chances with villainy rather than die young in an Epic Battle due to a useless power. She was seated on a couch, pale and listless. One hand held a small remote. The other was firmly wrapped around her middle.

Jason pulled a folded cloth from his utility belt, expanding it into a small cushion with the press of a button, and heating it to a decent temperature with a touch. He silently handed it to the villainess, Shadow Queen and Winter Queen tossing her a few bars of chocolate from their own belts.

Glimmer looked at them like they hung the moon, and passed them the remote without protest. “That’ll de-activate the forcefield, and any remaining traps. Serves the assholes right for dragging me into this when I specifically said that I didn’t feel up to it today.”

Naiad caught the remote and patted her sympathetically on the shoulder. “We never saw you.”

Tsunami smirked. “You might want to rescue Bloodhound at some point, though. He’s trapped in the ladies room.”

Glimmer shrugged. “He’ll keep where he is, at least until he feels like apologising for calling me weak because I didn’t want to pull off an Evil Plot while feeling like my uterus is being used as a punching bag.”

Naiad patted her again. “Keep the heat-pack, and take as long as you like.”


End file.
